Hideki Matsui in “red”

One of the biggest news in Japanese baseball front in this MLB hot stove season is that Hideki Matsui left the New York Yankees and signed with Los Angeles Angels. Seeing him wear Angels uniform for the first time was as strange as when I saw Nomar Garciaparra in Cubs uniform for the first time.

One of the funny thing that came out of it was that I guess last off season, Hideki Matsui filmed a TV commercial with Japanese beverage company Kirin, which promote new line of coffee named “Fire.” In the commercial, Matsui is wearing a red helmet and “F” on his helmet.

Hideki Matsui was wearing red helmet for Japanese commercial

Many thought the red helmet did not suit him, (and neither did I) then. Some were saying that it was an omen that he may sign with team with red helmet after he hits free agency… (I didn’t/don’t really believe in it, but just an excuse to post something with Japanese ads on my blog.)

JapaneseBallPlayers.com is a unique bilingual* website that provide information, news and stats for MLB players from Japan. This is a blog, written by Daigo Fujiwara, who created the website over 10 years ago.